I just purchased a brand-new BenQ 1620 (Pro) and after a couple of "glitches" I have managed to burn a DVD video on DVD+RW media succesfully using DVD Shrink.

I am learning how to do this and am hoping to find some help learning how to do burn DVDs. In case there is interest, the following link will give some "background" as far as how I have come to this point:

While I have succefully burned a DVD movie onto a DVD+RW, I am unable to burn to a DVD-R, and would like to know Why I can't do this. I'm not particularly "wedded" to the Fuji DVD-R media I have (I only have 3 more unused blanks left, the other 7 are "coasters".) but I would like to be able to burn to a cheaper media than the DVD+RW's I am using to learn with now.

Before I go out and my some non-ReWritable media, I would like to know what the problem is with this media. Fuji is a good brand, and the BenQ is a good burner, so the problem (I figure) has to be in the software settings, or something else.

Could someone help me to figure this out, so I can "move forward" in burning DVD's ?

As an experiment, for the 8th time I tried to burn a DVD Movie to one of the DVD-R's (7 previous coasters) and this time (for some reason) it seems to be working. I have gotten farther in the burning process than I ever have before.

Right now it is burning at 2.4x and is 24 % complete.

Why is it working this time, when it wouldn't before ?

- Also -

Why is it only burning at 2.4x? The DVD+RW burned at 4x. Does the media determine burning speed ?

The BenQ is better suited for +R/+RW media, but that is not to say it cannot burn -R/-RW. Might be helpful if you install DVDINFOpro and try to get some details about the media. It is a useful little utility and works well with the BenQ drive. It can help you get answers of the media type you have and it's recording speed capacity. Beyond that, I'm not much help tonight -- have to finish the last two chapters of Revenge of the Sith and get to bed... Good luck.

If you don't have the latest firmware for your BenQ give it a try to install it, it is possible, if BenQ knows this, to have changed the writing strategy with the specific media from Fuji in order to improve their writing quality. If the problem is still the same then it would be better to go for a different media brand.

If you still want to burn DVD-R, the following page has some of them, 8X certified, with good writing quality:

Went to Best Buy today and bought a 50-pack spindle of Sony 1-8X DVD+R's. They were on-sale for about $ 25.00. (That's about $0.50 each for you math geniuses.)

These DVD's were on listed this Link: as being compatible with my new BenQ 1620.

So far I have sucessfully burned 2 of these DVD at 16X. Got almost 4.7 Gigs of data in about 6 mintes!

What's nice is that these DVD's are being sold as "1-8X", but the list (above) says that 16X is possible. (Which is why I bought them.)

The fact that they were on sale was an added bonus.

While at Best Buy, I noticed that the DVD's being sold as 16X are selling for TWICE AS MUCH as the 8X DVD's I purchased. So if anyone else is at the same place on the learning curve as me, te 8X media burning at 16X is GREAT!

Does it have Sony "AccuCORE" branding? If so it is made by Sony, if not, likely the media may come from RICOH JPN. The media code can be found in various apps inc. A120%, DVDInfoPro, CDVDInfo etc...

First, I installed DVDInfoPro a couple of days ago and it seemed fine. But now I try to use it and it says that the version is "out of date". I have downloaded and re-installed the thing several times and it keeps saying it is out of date. Then I get some kind of memory error. I think the whole "embedded advert" & "continuous update" thing on this software is one big, steaming-hot dookie.

Second, I downloaded the "CDVDInfo" and installed it, but it wants some kind of "ASPI" layer thing installed and I don't know what ASPI is, why I need it and what bad things might happen if I install it so I am not going to. Plus I don't want to spend the time dicking around with the stupid thing.

Third, I tried to use my installed version of "Alcohol 120%" to find out what the "media code" is and I can't seem to find the function in Alcohol that allows you to do this. The best I can come up with is that it's "Disk Type" is DVD+R (duh) and it's "booktype" is "DVD-ROM" (duh).

So how do you get Alcohol to tell you what the "media type" is ? Or what is wrong with my DVDInfoPro ? Or what is the deal with this CDVD-program and does EVERYBODY have to dick around with it to get it to work, or is it just me ?

I am interested in leaning about "media types", and I liked the DVDInfoPro program but honestly, if they can't do a better job of making their "embedded advert" mechanism allow the program to remain functional, I am sure a "special" version of this program is probably just a few mouse clicks away on P2P.

So what's next on the Learing Parade? I am at a loss for my next step.

There is controversy over what ASPI stands for... Advanced SCSI Programming Interface; or if you're Adaptec, the "A" stands for "Adaptec".

The Nero ASPI is good enough and SPTI (WinXP/2K only) works fine for me when Nero ASPI won't... If you have SCSI devices go for the Adaptec or LSI ASPI layer... I doubt you do... I still like SCSI, but only run the stuff in my Linux workstation nowadays.